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Aging and the immune system

  • Nephrology - Review
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Abstract

Aging is associated with many physiological changes in a variety of organ systems. Nevertheless, considerable interest has centred on the possibility that age-related immunological changes may play a key “master” role in regulating many, if not all, subsequent events. A growing body of data, some of it highlighted in this review, supports the notion that host resistance in general is changed in both a qualitative and quantitative manner with age, though the biochemical mechanism(s) underlying such changes are not unique to the immune system per se. Moreover, interventions designed to explore treatments which may reverse some or all of those age-related changes have pointed out a fundamentally important role for nutrition, and the way(s) in which this impacts on host resistance mechanism(s), as having a hitherto unappreciated importance in immunosenescence in general.

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Acknowledgements

Supported by grants from the Heart & Stroke Association of Ontario (RG) and the Turkish Science Foundation (RG and ET).

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  1. Toronto Hospital, University Health Network, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Reginald M. Gorczynski

  2. 2-805, MaRS Tower, 101 College Street, Toronto, ON, Canada, M5G1L7

    Reginald M. Gorczynski

  3. Department of Medicine, Akdeniz University, Antalya, Turkey

    Ender Terzioglu

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Correspondence to Reginald M. Gorczynski.

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Gorczynski, R.M., Terzioglu, E. Aging and the immune system. Int Urol Nephrol 40, 1117–1125 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11255-008-9412-1

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